U.S. names 19 culprits in far-flung network

Naftali Bendavid and Monica DaveyTribune staff reporters

The Justice Department put a face Friday on what had been a largely faceless, if horrific, conspiracy, releasing the names of 19 hijackers it says are responsible for seizing four airplanes Tuesday and crashing them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and an open field outside Pittsburgh.

And in a significant expansion of its dragnet, the FBI sent police departments and airlines across the country the names of more than 100 people it is seeking in connection with the attacks. Justice Department officials stressed that not everyone on the list is suspected of aiding the terrorists; some may simply have useful information.

With the nation on edge and law enforcement on high alert, the FBI in New York arrested a "material witness" on Friday. The individual's identity was not disclosed. Agents also interviewed passengers on a Miami cruise ship then released them.

The formal identification of the hijackers, which begins to fill out details of the men who carried out the biggest mass killing in U.S. history, suggests just how far-flung the network was. With home addresses from Phoenix to New Jersey, members of the generally quiet group lived with families or as roommates as they studied to be pilots or bided their time in small, suburban communities until their deadly flights.

Some appeared to be related, suggesting that family ties may have helped the sizable group keep its elaborate plans secret for so long.

The Justice Department said it has "a reasonably high level of confidence" that the 19 hijackers--one more than previously reported--are the actual culprits, and not people using their identities.

Delray Beach, Fla., a sprawling beachfront community midway between Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, was home to seven of the hijackers.

Public records showed that as recently as last Sunday, three of the men lived in a rented condominium with a pastel-colored welcome mat and a "welcome" sign to the left of the door festooned with a heart in the shape of flowers, a watering can and birds flitting behind a blue-sky background.

The three men are Hamza Alghamdi, who was aboard United Airlines Flight 175, which crashed into the World Trade Center; and Ahmed Alnami and Saeed Alghamdi, both of whom were aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into southwestern Pennsylvania.

Several neighbors said they thought the men were students because they were in their late 20s or early 30s and neatly dressed.

But they also considered the men a bit odd. They nearly always kept to themselves, for instance, and one neighbor recalled that the men often went swimming between 10 and 11 p.m., wearing swimsuits and carrying their briefcases to the pool.

About three months ago, the men rented Apartment 1504 at the Delray Racquet Club, a complex of rental condominiums and tennis courts. They drove a small white car that they always parked in the same place.

"I knew them because my dog took an intense disliking to them," said Joanne Glantz, 49, a real estate appraiser who lived down the hall. "She would go ballistic, and they used to get really annoyed by that."

She said only one of the men ever spoke, and Glantz wasn't sure the other two could speak English.

Another neighbor, Nicole Martinez, 14, said the three men never talked to anyone and turned toward each other in the elevator, as if they didn't want anyone to hear their conversations. She said she occasionally saw a fourth man with the group.

The FBI investigation--now called PENTTBOM, for Pentagon Twin Towers bombing--has moved swiftly across the U.S. and Europe. Agents so far have done hundreds of interviews, served more than 30 warrants, and seized computers and other items. Nearly 4,000 agents are scouring the nation for at least 30 accomplices of the hijackers, some of whom may have fled the country.

Flight schools where the hijackers or their associates may have trained continued to be key destinations for investigators. At Sunbird Flight Services in Chandler, Ariz., federal authorities looked through records of international students who had taken pilot lessons. Officials at the Pan Am Flight Academy in Phoenix confirmed that FBI agents spent considerable time poring over school records.

One of the hijackers, Hani Hanjour, is believed to have lived in Phoenix, but it was unclear whether he attended flight school there.

FBI Director Robert Mueller said the bureau had not previously focused on flight schools as a potential training ground for terrorists.

"If we had understood that to be the case, perhaps one could have averted this," Mueller said.

The cockpit voice recorder for one of the aircraft, American Airlines Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon, was so badly damaged that it yielded no information, Justice Department officials said. Investigators have also recovered the flight data recorder from Flight 77 and both black boxes from United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed outside Pittsburgh, but it is not clear whether they have produced any useful information.

The emerging portrait of the hijackers suggests a high level of forethought among a close-knit group of operatives. Two of the hijackers whose names were released Friday, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, were said to be cousins. They lived together in Florida and in Germany during the past year and took pilot training together.

In Florida, the two took classes at Huffman Aviation from July 3, 2000, through Jan. 3, 2001. "There was not too much contact with these two," owner Rudi Dekkers said. "They didn't speak to anybody. They didn't joke around with the boys or go out for a beer or anything like that."

The flight instructors, Dekkers said, "had problems with Atta about attitudes. He was not listening to the instructors. The chief instructor told Atta if he was not listening, he would be kicked out."

Dekkers said he did not know whether the men had special visas because the FBI has taken his files. He does remember that both had passports, which were copied by the flight school.

Atta and Al-Shehhi did not say what their nationality was, but Dekkers was reassured that they had been in Germany. "When they come from a Western European country, we feel better than if they come from Muslim countries," he said.

Both men accumulated the 250 hours necessary to pass their flight tests and get their licenses. They began by flying a Cessna 152, a basic two-seater, and graduated to a twin-engine Piper Seneca. They received licenses allowing them to get jobs as commercial pilots.

Atta's bill to the school came to $18,700, while Al-Shehhi paid $20,000. The two also trained at other facilities; Atta had two sessions at a flight simulation center at Opa-locka Airport near Miami.

Those sessions simulated a Boeing 727, which is not as sophisticated as the 767s that were flown into the World Trade Center, with Atta and Al-Shehhi on board. But they would have been enough to help someone with Atta's level of experience get a feel for steering a large jet.

Convinced that it has identified all the hijackers, the FBI is now focusing its attention on dozens of potential accomplices or co-conspirators, as well as those who may have information about the terrorist attacks.

In a sign of the jitters enveloping the nation, Midway Airport was shut down for three hours Friday afternoon when security workers saw something unusual in a piece of luggage. Two people were detained, and the airport was closed while authorities hunted for a third member of the party.